A COMPONENT APPROACH FOR THE CICLIC ANALYSIS OF CROSS-LAMINATED SOLID TIMBER PANELS

G. Rinaldin¹, C. Amadio¹, M. Fragiacomo²

¹Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Architettura, Università degli Studi di Trieste

²Dipartimento di Architettura, Design e Pianificazione Urbana, Università degli Studi di Sassari

SUMMARY Cross-laminated (‘X-lam’) timber panels represent a new effective construction technology, with significant potential for multi-storey earthquake-resistant buildings. Despite the extensive use of this system in Europe, there is a lack of design methods to evaluate the capacity of X-lam structures in terms of dissipated energy and global response under cyclic loads. In the paper a method that allows an accurate evaluation of the energy dissipated by a subassembly made of X-lam panels connected to each other and to the foundation with metal fasteners is proposed. The component approach is used, where the X-lam panel is regarded as elastic and all dissipated energy is assumed to take place in the connections. Appropriate user elements are implemented in the ABAQUS software package as external subroutines for the  screw, angle bracket, and hold-down connections. These elements allow the user to implement a hysteretic behaviour with pinching very close to the experimental results with allowance for strength and stiffness degradation. The model was then calibrated and validated on cyclic tests carried out at CNR-Ivalsa on a single X-lam wall connected to the foundation. The numerical model was able to predict the correct cyclic response of the wall subassembly in terms of deflection and energy with an overall good approximation, and can therefore be used to perform dynamic analyses of X-lam structures in a reliable way.